The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to three scholars for their research in the field of human immune system

Stockholm (AP) – Three Nobel Prize scientists won on Monday for their discoveries on how to attack the germs immune system, not our bodies.

Mary E. Bronko, Farid Ramzel, and Dr. Shimon Sakajui on a major path that the body uses to keep the immune system under control, is called peripheral immune tolerance. Experts described the results as decisive to understand autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid and lupus arthritis.

In separate projects for several years, the three scientists – two in the United States and one in Japan – have identified the importance of what is now called organizational T cells. Scientists are currently using these results in several ways: to discover better treatments for autoimmune diseases, improve the success of organ implantation, and enhance the body’s resistance to cancer, among other methods.

“Their discoveries were crucial to our understanding of how the immune system works and why not all of us have serious autoimmune diseases,” said Oli Campbi, Chairman of the Nobel Committee.

Bronco, 64, is now as a great program director at the Systems Biology Institute in Seattle. Ramsel, 64, is a scientific advisor for Sonoma Biotherapeutics, based in San Francisco. Sakajui, 74, is a distinguished professor at the Immunology Border Research Center at the University of Osaka in Japan.

The award, officially known as the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is the first Nobel Prize for 2025 and announced by a committee at the Carolinska Institute in Stockholm.

The Physics Award will be announced on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday, and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be announced on Friday, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in the economy on October 13.

The work that received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for 2025

The immune system has intertwined ways to detect and combat bacteria, viruses and other intruders. But sometimes, some immune cells behave badly, accidentally attack the cells and tissues of people to cause autoimmune diseases.

Scientists have once believed that the body only organizes this system in a central way. The main immunity soldiers, such as T -cells, are trained to discover bad elements, and those that deviate in a way that may lead to autoimmune, and are disposed of in the thymus gland.

The Nobel Prize winners revealed an additional way in which the body keeps its system under control if there is confusion between the immune cells and believed that human cells are intrusive, which happens when a person suffers from autonomous immune disease.

“He was interested in the mechanism of the immune response that was supposed to protect the soul but also interact with itself and attack it,” Sakajui said.

His experiences on the mice showed that the thyroid pathway cannot be the only explanation. In 1995, he discovered a sub -type of T -cell that was not known before, which is organizational T cells, which can also put out excessive immune cells in the reaction such as the biological security guard.

Then in 2001, Bronko and Amsdel were working together in a biotechnology company that conducted research on mice infected with an autoimmune disease. In a hard work at a time when the genes mapping was still an advanced field, they discovered that a specific mutation in a gene called Foxp3 is responsible, and soon they realized that it could be a major player in human health as well.

“From the level of DNA, it was a really small change that caused this tremendous change in how the immune system works,” Bronco told Associated Press.

Returning to Japan, Sakajui noted: “It has received great attention as one gene that can explain many autoimmune diseases, but the cause of the gene caused diseases a mystery.”

Two years later, Sakagucci linked the discoveries to show that the Foxp3 gene controls the development of these regulatory T cells, so that they are able to curb other excessive cells in the reaction.

Why this work is important

This work has opened a new field of immunology.

Dr. Jonathan Senk, a cellular immunity expert at Johns Hopkins University, said that even the publication of triple research, immunologists did not understand how complicated how the body was distinguished by foreign cells from its cells.

Cink said that one of the goals now is to know how to increase the number of organizational T -cells – also known as T -REGS – to help fight autoimmune diseases. This would reduce the need for today’s treatments, which instead suppress the immune system in ways that make patients vulnerable to infection.

The American immunity Association said that the work of the winners “mainly re -understood the immunity balance.”

Senik warned that the discoveries have not yet led to new treatments. But “it is extremely important to emphasize that this work started in 1995 and we reap the benefits, but we still have many benefits that we can earn” while scientists build on their work.

How was Mary E. Bronko, Farid Ramzel and Dr. Shimon Sakajui

“He seemed very grateful, and he expressed a wonderful honor. He was severely affected by the news.”

At a press conference after hours – which was boycotted by a congratulatory call from the Japanese Prime Minister – Sakajucci described his victory as a “happy surprise”.

He added: “There are many diseases that need more research and treatment, and I hope that there will be more progress in those fields in order for the results to prevent diseases. This is what our research aims at.”

Meanwhile, Bronko received the news of her prize from the Associated Press photographer, who came to her home in Seattle in the early hours of the morning.

She said she ignored the precedent of the Nobel Committee. “Ren my phone and saw a number of Sweden and thought:” This is just a random mail of some kind. “

Her husband, Ross Kolkoon, said: “When Mary told she won, she said: Don’t be ridiculous.”

The Associated Press or the employer was unable to reach Ramdeel immediately, as he thought he might be far on a back trip.

“It is one of the most humble people you can meet,” Jeff Blosson, CEO of Sonoma Biotherapics, told Associated Press. “It will be great for us to make his trumpet for him.”

The award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the awards. Nobel was a rich Swedish manufacturer and dynamite inventor. He died in 1896.

The trio will share the financial prize of 11 million Swedish croics (about $ 1.2 million).

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Wasoon reported from Seattle and Nergard from Washington. This was contributed by Mary Yamaguchi from Tokyo, Stephanie Dazio and David Keaton from Berlin, and Edithi Ramkrichnan from New York.

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